The Double-Edged Sword: The Winter of Hate

By Colin Hussey

The particularly dry and biting cold of this winter has been apropos of City Hall's climate. It's a wonder anything gets done in this town what with all the icy venom coursing through the corridors of power.

As of this writing, Mayor Gavin Newsom is in the midst of a meltdown, having had a fling with the wife of his now erstwhile confidante and campaign manager and now confessing to alcoholism—which better not be just a cover. The disease is no joke, and if this were Newsom's affliction, then I'd prefer he resign his post before entering rehab. I want a Mayor who can better manage the personal demons than Newsom has, thus far. He needs to work on fixing himself before he can fix anything in a city of over 750,000.

Newsom's most loyal supporters, fearing the loss of a check and balance to a Board dominated by political enemies, real and imagined, are quick to forgive their noble prince's all-too-human foibles, applauding his courage in coming forward with his dysfunction, while the Mayor's detractors, quietly relishing their enemy's vulnerability, cluck to themselves, "We knew all along he was a no good, philandering drunk who can't be trusted." And, as far as I'm concerned, working as a Mayor in this town could drive anyone to substance addiction.

However he is perceived, Newsom has become an asset to his opponents. He's not alone. We can see this as cases in point with the last election. The Democrats have the Republicans to thank for their return to a majority in Congress. And if the GOP takes back Congress in two years, it will be due in large part to screw-ups of their principal opposition. Some of Daly's supporters have waxed indignant over mailers printed by Daly's opponents in the last election, yet those opposition pieces in the closing days were so repulsive and unoriginal, in terms of content and layout, that they motivated turn-out for Chris like never before. Daly should be thanking the Golden Gate Restaurant Association for their unintended assistance. "Everything Changes," indeed!

That's what it boils down to, in this day & age: a political system powered more by the failures of others than one's own successes, dominated by tribes defined mostly by what and who they hate, unable and unwilling to reconcile, distrustful of anyone deviating from their orthodoxy. It's a crabs-in-a-barrel approach, rendering ideology and political affiliation a joke, producing candidates who mostly run to not lose rather than to win and voters who choose someone to prevent someone they hate worse from occupying the office. (I plead guilty, myself.) It produces unimaginative policies that solve nothing and paint-by-numbers political language that signify nothing.

San Francisco is no different. The purportedly progressive "City that knows how" engages in the same kind of Byzantine politics as one might find inside the Beltway, but with only a different lexicon of buzzwords. What's so progressive about a raging debate on police foot patrols? What's so progressive about our Board of Education contracting a big money firm in Chicago to search for a Superintendent for our Unified School District, rather than interviewing from the rank and file in the local Teachers' Union for their hire? Or branding someone "pro-gentrification" for supporting someone other than a favored incumbent—even if that incumbent has his own pet gentrification projects in the works?

Many of our local officials and activists pride themselves on preaching the gospel of conflict resolution and restorative justice, but can they resolve the conflicts among and within the stiff-necked factions in our City's political environment? Protesters scream at Bush to end the war in Iraq, but the various groups fight viciously among themselves over how to best go about it. Nor have prominent proponents of peace managed to effectively demonstrate the superiority of their approach to conflicts by ending the gang wars on our own streets. Diplomacy may be the answer, but where are the diplomats? Not here, sorry.

So forgive me if I'm not a true believer. Or don't forgive me if it makes you feel better. In today's politics, it's all the rage to hate. I find myself doing it, too. The hatefulness of our political climate inspires me to resent the dilettantes running our City and our country into the ground, their personal dramas splayed across blogs, papers and magazines like the tales concerning the dysfunctional Egyptian and Hellenic pantheons of old, while their policies create more alienation with little in the area of substantive results.

Now, I'm told that in spite of Newsom's soap opera life, he stands to win another term if he opts to continue with his reelection campaign, and I'm thinking to myself, can't we break this pattern? Can't we find someone not so tightly attached to any of the tribes, yet able to get along, more or less, with all of them? Can't we find a good worker who keeps the personal drama away from the job site? Is this wishful thinking on my part? Probably. However, if Newsom continues with his run, then at the very least, I want him to work as hard as Daly had to, last year, to keep his seat.

For my part, I'm compelled to ask of the readers and myself, what more can we do to improve living conditions in our community beyond what's being currently offered and discussed by our elected officials? Doubtless, there are many in this town doing just that, whether it's offering a decent-paying gig to a recovering addict or organizing cultural events in a neighborhood pub.

There may be a fair amount of hatred in elite political circles, but I've found a goodly bit of love below the surface. So if there's any leading to be done around here then we the people, individual citizens of various political stripes reaching across party lines, need to do it ourselves. And maybe then this winter of hate will give way to at least a spring of civility, if not an out and out summer of love.